Freedom of speech in the private sector.

Post Reply New Topic

I'd like to start my own business, or more particularly write science fiction and historical fiction novels.

If I could afford the investment ever, I'd probably want to farm primarily and write when there isn't much other work to do.

Make a plan and start working toward that goal. There's no reason you can't achieve it if you set your mind to it. Plus it'll make the BS of having a job a lot more tolerable.

You're not the only one who has that concept. I put up a more recent Aspie community thread, through my ideas run more towards having an Aspie neighborhood.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt215426.html

There's more recent activity in the Aspie Urban community thread.

Employers are just collections of people, not inanimate entities, and they have their own rights, including freedom of association. Their responsibility, and right, is to make the best decisions for the good of the business, and that means hiring and retaining employees that benefit the business and removing those that do not. No one should be forced to retain a bad employee, whether "bad" means poor work ethic, chronic tardiness/absenteeism, or alienating customers by their words or behavior. The 1st Amendment protects your speech from the government, no one else, and unless you're blowing a particular whistle or reporting a crime, there is no "retaliation" in an employer acting against you for speech that is detrimental to their business if you also happen to work for them.

So the solution to a government made problem is... more government? :p Government is not the answer to the problem, government *is* the problem...

If you want to start writing novels, start writing novels. You obviously have a computer, and a decent word processing program is free, as is signing up for Kindle Direct Publishing. These days, making money off writing doesn't cost anything but time spent writing and encouraging people to buy your stories. You might only make a few dollars off each novel sale, but you could maybe earn a dozen or so thousand dollars in total (I haven't made anything yet, but then again I haven't put more than a couple of shorts up on KDP - search Tobias Holbrook in the Kindle store). Save it up, and maybe you'll be able to buy a small piece of land and work towards your other goal.

I still don't get why energy still costs money though. We don't get charged a fee for the use of atmospheric oxygen for ourselves and our vehicles, but water and energy - things which are also provided for free by nature - are charged on a continuing basis. Why can't we each have collectively owned solar power systems in nearspace which beam all the electricity we need down to us, and use some of that to squeeze fresh water from the seas, rivers, and air? Combine that with affordable tiny homes, and we've only got food left as an ongoing cost - a cost which, at this point, should be easily met by the gardens (forest or otherwise) which everyone ought to have...

The difficulty is in seeing how to get from A to B, without getting trapped in loan shark country or other extortion schemes. Being trapped in retail is my current state, and I just don't see any certain way out yet.

Precisely.

when someone weilds that sort of economic and social power over you, its sort of hard to argue that free speech exists in the private sector.

Your freedom to speak exists in as far as your ability to find alternative work.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions, I really appreciate them.



If it can be billed it will be?

Air doesn't cost much. At least in countries with clean air laws, that is... energy literally falls from the sky, intermittently but reliably, at a maximum rate of 1.4kW per square meter, though the normal rate when it reaches the ground is probably closer to 1-200W per square meter. If you intercept it in nearspace, though, you can get significant increases in the amount you capture, collecting maybe 25W per square meter of collector when you average over the entire 24 day and account for inefficiencies. Still, a hectare of such solar collecting airships could provide you with 250kW, which is enough to sustain a small settlement. By comparison, planting a hectare of potatoes could provide you with enough food for said small settlement, and could be planted directly under the (very small at this point) shadow of your nearspace power plant. Store up energy during the day, and when it's cold at night use it to power the compressors to squeeze clean water out of the air, if you're in an area without reliable water.

Anyway, rambling over. To the other tangent of this thread, may I present to you a Cracked.com article - 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person.

Produce to survive? Most production is done with very few people because of automation financed by the people. The people therefore have the right to the fruits of that technology. There is no scarcity that justifies making people slaves. If everyone's contribution was so badly needed, why is there a Reserve Army of Labour that must amount to at least 5% of the population of people wanting to work? That's the law of NAIRU that has been followed since 1980 or so. This NAIRU rate sometimes is higher if it's a more right wing person...